SpokaneFixer

One day, I was minding my own business, throwing volcanic rock off of my roof into the yard below while my wife and children stood well in the clear and watched. No big deal. Just another day in our normal, fixer-upper lives. Our neighbor looked on and must have wondered what I was up to, as he later confided in me that he told his wife “The neighbor has finally lost it.”

You might remember some of the before photos of our home that showed over half of the front covered in 1970’s style volcanic rock. I’m sure it was all the rage in 1977, but in the modern era it just looked like a morbid, dark, overpowering sadness. When we decided to have siding installed on the home a few years ago, my then 5 year old son and I removed each rock, piece by piece. Some of it was replaced with blue shake siding and the rest with gray-toned modern cultured stone. It completely changed the character of the house and brought it from death to life practically overnight (or over the three summers it took me to finish the cultured stone… but that’s a story for another post).

Fast forward to this year. The chimney was constructed of the same volcanic rock as was on the house, and it was always the plan to match it to the new cultured stone. I thought it would only take a few hours, and since I had enough left over stone from the front of the house, it shouldn’t have been terribly expensive. Spoiler alert: I was wrong on both counts.

Here’s a free tip for all you fixers out there: it can really eat into the budget of your renovation if you fall off of the roof and have to pay for a long-term hospital stay. Luckily for me, that didn’t happen. But I imagine it would have broken the budget along with my bones (and pride). But really, who knew clay chimney flue liners were so expensive at nearly $30 each? And the chimney caps that I should have installed years ago? $40 each. Corners and rain sills? Another $200. Two cans of Raid to douse the dozen live yellow jacket nests I found deep in the dark crevasses of the chimney? PRICELESS.

In the scheme of renovations, these figures are fairly small. However, I really thought reconstructing the chimney using rock and mortar I already had on hand would make this a very inexpensive project. By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. The chimney was in shambles, and I was far too committed to stop.

To be continued…

The Overpowering Sadness

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The Chimney

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Breaking the Sadness

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